Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

7.03
Elliptical Orbit

         Lance hadn’t gotten the chance to properly acquaint himself with the Black Lion. His takeover as the Black Paladin had been rushed, panicked, and he had been too busy trying to fight off Kuron when he first sat down at Black’s controls. Afterward, the team had entered the astral plane and then been flung to the very edge of the universe.

         Now, though, with the Lions awake at last, and the team not exactly in a hurry, he could take his time.

         Internal gravity had turned back on, and Lance approached the pilot’s seat slowly, almost reverently. He took in the violet that lit up the dashboard and the view of the empty, sun-drenched skies beyond the windows. Black’s energy was a steady but unnerving thrum in Lance’s chest. It gave him the same weightless sensation as those suspended moments in the air as Lance cannonballed into the pool or the ocean, the sky enveloping him and the water open and inviting below.

         “Uh, hi,” Lance greeted awkwardly when he finally settled in, resting his hands on the controls at his sides. “So…the last few days have been a lot, huh?” The dashboard lights remained steady, and there was no sudden frizz of nerves down the back of Lance’s spine to indicate danger, yet he still found it hard to breathe. “Um. Thank you, I guess? For believing in me, I mean. Thank you for…for your trust. It helped us to bring Shiro back home.”

         Cool air whispered through Lance’s chest, and he nodded. He was a bit unsettled and still unused to Black’s energy where Blue’s and Red’s were before, but no less grateful. Black had heard him, was responding to him, and that was enough.

         “How are we doing, team?” he asked over the comms, forcing himself to relax a bit. “You running that diagnostic, Pidge?”

         “As we speak,” Pidge sing-songed. “All energy levels are stable and at full capacity!”

         “Navigation’s having a hard time pinning down our location,” Matt added.

         “Communications aren’t getting any pings,” Hunk said. “We might be too far out of the Coalition’s reach. I mean, the edge of the universe is supposed to be practically impossible to reach in the first place just because of the way physics works—”

         “All we’ve gotta do right now is see what’s going on on that other planet,” Lance interrupted with a shake of his head. “Can anyone get a read on it?”

         They were banking on the fact that A, the thing orbiting them was a planet at all, and B, that it held civilization of any kind, anyone to whom they could reach out.

         “Gonna need to get in closer,” Pidge answered a moment later. “Nothing here is logged in Voltron’s databases, and we can’t risk even trying to ping the castle. Though if we can’t reach any other members of the Coalition, not sure a ping would even go through.”

         “All right.” Lance rolled his shoulders, tried and failed to crack his neck. “Everyone ready, then?”

         One by one, each Paladin answered in the affirmative, and Lance gripped the controls a little tighter.

         “Let’s do this.”

         Voltron rose. The entire bot rumbled with the power of the engines and the ground shaking beneath them as they peeled out of the crater. At this vantage point, Lance could more clearly pick out the distant mountains, the rings of clouds swirling around their highest peaks. He wondered what lay beyond them—maybe one day the team could come back and find out.

         For now, they had a job to do.

         Lance allowed himself one glance back at the massive crater the team had called home for a week and the jagged-rock outline of a robot lying in the center of it, a permanent VOLTRON WAS HERE. Would anyone else stumble upon it one day? Would a new race of beings emerge the same way humans had and wonder where this shape came from? What it depicted? Would it even still be here?

         “Someone’s getting existential,” Hunk cut in, suspicious. “I can feel it through the bond. Lance!”

         “Hey now!” Lance said indignantly. “I’m the Black Paladin, I can do whatever I want! And that includes getting existential!”

         “Please don’t give us a Keith repeat,” Allura sighed.

         Keith and Lance each squawked in protest. “I wasn’t that bad—” “He could have been worse—”

         “Can we get in closer so I can scan this planet before Voltron suddenly runs out of power again?” Pidge interrupted.

         “Yeah, guys, we’ve got a mission, Hunk!” Lance replied.

         “Real mature—”

         Lance blew a raspberry over the comms. “Anyway, like Pidge said, we’ve got a mission. We’ll see what’s in store for us and whether it’s worth pursuing, and right now we’re just gonna bank on the idea that it is worth pursuing.”

         The way Voltron operated, it only took a couple minutes to get close enough to the planet to start inspecting it. A holoscreen popped up at Lance’s right as the Green Lion began its scan. Even from this distance, with the naked eye, Lance could already pick out a web of lights too grid-like and too bright to be the work of nature alone. As the scan materialized before him, he saw nothing but dense clusters of buildings, of fantastically tall skyscrapers creeping toward the stars.

         “I’m getting an incredible number of energy signatures here,” Pidge muttered, and Lance could see for himself the number of energy signatures—probable citizens and tourists—rocketing as the scan continued to render.

         “So, of all planets for us to have crash-landed on, we ended up with the most remote planet out here,” Keith sighed.

         “There are plenty of places on Earth that no one lives, and any visiting alien might mistake it for a completely uninhabited planet—” Shiro began on Keith’s end of the comms, only to be cut off with a groan from Keith.

         “It’s also possible that whoever lives on this planet, they’re not built to handle the planet we were stranded on,” Matt chimed in.

         “Is there even any place to land here?” Coran interjected. “This map looks rather crowded.”

         Lance looked it over again while the rest of the team quieted, inspecting the map for themselves. There were a few flat-topped buildings that might have served as landing strips, but otherwise, no matter which way he turned the projection, he found nothing that looked more like an airport or airfield. Not to mention, the planet was rather small to begin with.

         “Are we sure this is even a planet?” Lance asked.

         “Guessing it’s more of a Pluto situation,” Hunk answered.

         “Or maybe a moon?” Keith tossed out.

         “Not sure if it’s worth arguing specifics over,” Pidge said. “Should we try to land, or—?”

         “I think we need to,” Lance said.

         Even if the team didn’t end up staying—there didn’t seem to be very many places to land a giant robot—they needed supplies. Their emergency supplies weren’t entirely diminished, but they needed restocking, especially since the team had no idea how long it would take to get back to the castleship, be it days or weeks or months, and their stash was made for five people, not nine.

         They drew in closer to the planet. As they broke through the atmosphere, they could see that air traffic from space was almost nonexistent, but air traffic from the planet itself was heavy. Speeders and small bullet-shaped aircraft zipped and wove between the spires of their tallest buildings. Further below, congested lanes of air traffic crawled through more central throughways. Lights flashed, and noise—discordant honking and beeping, shrill alarms, pounding bass lines—poured through smog. All of it was bathed in a rainbow of color, with different signs and billboards and light spilling from the windows of the buildings around them guiding their way.

         “What the hell?” Keith whispered.

         “Space is so weird,” Hunk muttered.

         “Over there seems like our best shot,” Pidge said. A strip in the projection lit up: the rooftop of one of the taller buildings, just large enough for Voltron to park standing up. That high up, they would easily be shrouded from onlookers by the chaos below.

         Part of Lance itched to ask Pidge if there was somewhere else, or maybe several other places. On the one hand, the less energy they spent breaking apart and reforming Voltron, the better. On the other hand, it seemed risky to just leave Voltron all together instead of separating the Lions. Then again, if something were to happen, divide and conquer was a popular attack strategy for a reason—

         “Let’s do it,” Lance said, letting a breath go.

         “Everyone be on your guards,” Keith added.

         They landed atop the building. If anyone below noticed anything out of place, like a massive robot suddenly appearing, or if anyone in the building heard a sudden, room-rattling thump on the roof, they didn’t show it. As the team climbed out of Voltron and gathered between its legs, Lance half-expected for some law enforcement unit to arrive, or maybe the military to show up and demand to know what, exactly, they thought they were doing.

         “Should we try and find some kind of clothes store?” Hunk asked, looking down at his armor. “Do you think people will recognize us? Do we want people recognizing us?”

         “I think we need changes of clothes anyway,” Lance said. He began counting off on his fingers. “We need a to-do list. Clothes, food, more bedding—or really any sort of camping or survival gear, I guess—more first aid supplies…”

         “We should at least try and figure out if people know about Voltron,” Allura said. “Whether we give ourselves away or not, I think it would be useful to see if anyone in this part of the universe has heard of us or the Galra.”

         “All right then. Should we move in groups? Buddy system? Stay together?”

         Hunk sucked in a breath through his teeth. “I mean, sticking together someplace like this makes us stick out like a sore thumb, but the last time we split up in a place like this, you got possessed, there was a second where we fully thought Pidge died—”

         “What?” Pidge interrupted.

         “—and then we got tossed around like ragdolls by Lotor’s generals,” Hunk continued without answering. “At the same time, though, at least splitting up lets us cover more ground. And if we can manage a change of clothes, at least then we’ll have an easier time lying low.”

         “I mean, we could just stay at a hotel,” Coran said. The rest of the group fell silent as their heads swiveled toward him. At their staring, he continued, “Voltron isn’t exactly the most comfortable place to sleep, and if we do indeed need some sort of accessible rendezvous point, a hotel room is the best place. Plus, it’ll give the Lions some more rest, as well as give us rest in some place that isn’t completely remote!”

         “That’s…not a completely terrible idea,” Shiro said after a beat.

         “And what if people are looking for us?” Keith asked. “It’ll be real easy to see that the Paladins of Voltron have checked into a hotel—”

         “It’s a massive city,” Shiro said slowly, “and nobody said we were using our real names, or moving as one unit.”

         A grin slowly stretched across Lance’s face. “I like the way you think.”

         “This is the most ridiculous plan you’ve ever had.”

         “This was Coran and Shiro’s idea, now hush.”

         The team had gone shopping. They’d split up across the city and gathered new clothes, new communicators—jacked into their comms network and cut off from any other channels by Pidge—and luggage, into which they’d stuffed their armor. It would have looked suspicious to show up here without looking like tourists, Coran had insisted, and the luggage would make their need for a room seem all the more urgent.

         In Lance’s head, he had supposed the team would break down into groups with Allura, Romelle, and Coran in one, Keith and Shiro as a pair, Lance and Hunk as another pair, and finally the Holt siblings. Instead, Keith had promptly looped his arm into Lance’s and decided that for such a ridiculous plan, Lance would be stuck with him. As if it were some kind of punishment. As if Lance had been the main brain behind their plan. Meanwhile, Pidge and Matt had roped Hunk into their group, and Romelle had eagerly turned to Allura, leaving Coran and Shiro to their own devices.

         “Also, you did this to yourself,” Lance added. “Real smooth, by the way.”

         Keith flushed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

         “Okay, Akira.”

         The person in front of them in line departed from the front desk. Lance strode forward while Keith stayed a step behind him. The alien sitting at the desk gave them a bored once-over, taking in Lance’s long green duster, blue turtleneck, and fingerless gloves, and Keith’s new red bomber jacket with a furred hood, his own fresh set of gloves, and a pair of goggles currently making a mess of his bangs.

         “Hello,” Lance drawled, propping an arm on his luggage handle while the alien blinked at him, “do you happen to have an available room for two?”

         The receptionist glanced at the computer screens in front of them. After a few moments of dead-eyed scrolling, they turned back to Lance. “Can I get a name?”

         “Leandro.”

         Sighing, the receptionist punched Lance’s false name into the system. Then they handed over two ID cards. “Just swipe these at your door. Number’s on the card.”

         “Thank you kindly.” Lance tossed a wink at the receptionist for good measure—which they merely blinked at before turning to the next customer—while Keith rolled his eyes and began walking toward the elevators.

         “You’re ridiculous.”

         “I’m your ridiculous.”

         They gathered in the elevator with a handful of other guests and ended up squeezed into the corner. With no one to watch them and no one to care if they saw, Lance slipped his arm around Keith’s waist and held him close. Keith stiffened, glancing at Lance out of the corner of his eye, but relaxed at the easy grin Lance turned on him.

         “It’s just us, and no one who could recognize us,” Lance whispered in his ear before kissing his temple.

         Keith’s flush darkened. “Just didn’t think you would get into it that quickly.”

         Lance tilted his head and gave Keith a long look. “Me? Not get into a bit?” He pulled Keith closer. “With you, especially? Now that everything’s out there? Please.”

         Keith sighed in mock exasperation. Even still, he let himself smile too. “I should’ve known.”

         “Does anyone else think this is a bad plan, or is it just me?”

         Hunk was more or less talking to himself. He had been talking to Pidge and Matt, up until the elevator dinged as it landed on their floor. In an instant, the two of them tore down the hallway, racing each other to see who could reach their room and get the door open first.

         “Also, I call dibs on the single bed!” he shouted, but his voice went unheard as the two of them found their door and began trying to elbow each other out of the way.

         Hunk sighed and followed. The hallway he walked down was considerably brighter than it had been outside, even with the afternoon sun, but it was still far darker than he would have liked, with sleek black walls and ceilings, and a black, bowling alley-style carpet speckled with rainbow swirls beneath his feet. Light strips ran through the hall where the wall met the ceiling, almost like white LEDs. Between every few rooms, screens displayed looping videos like old computer screensavers or slideshows of brighter vacation destinations: beaches with multicolored sand, striped mountain peaks, sun-flooded cities with an abundance of flowers spilling over from window boxes and bushes.

         Hunk would rather have been any of those other places than here.

         By the time he arrived at the room, Pidge and Matt were already trying to tackle each other for the aforementioned single bed, ignoring the double right next to it. At the very least, it was good to see them talking and acting like themselves again—Hunk hadn’t missed the weird tension between them while they were on that other planet.

         “I’m the smallest!”

         “Yeah, which is why it makes more sense for you to share with someone!”

         “Smaller person gets the smaller bed—!”

         “That’s completely illogical—”

         There was a thud as Pidge and Matt each finally fell to the floor, still arguing. Rolling his eyes, Hunk stepped around them and placed his luggage down on the bed. “Like I said, I called dibs.”

         “Hunk!”

         “Oh, come on!”

         Pidge and Matt each groaned as they got up, Matt running a hand through his hair while Pidge scowled, grabbed her luggage, and tossed it onto the double.

         “Hunk, you’re a traitor.”

         “I’m just trying to keep you two from killing each other. And besides, don’t we have other, more important stuff to worry about? I don’t know how I feel about this whole plan. Voltron might be a little uncomfortable to sleep in, but we could just camp out in someone’s cargo hold. This seems way too risky,” Hunk said. “I mean, come on, all of the shops we went to took GAC. And if the entire planet is a city, where are they getting any of their food from? It doesn’t seem like they’re able to grow much here. They’re definitely connected.”

         Matt flapped a dismissive hand. “I mean on the one hand, sure, that means the Galra were probably here at some point. On the other hand, that means we’re that much closer to getting back to the castleship and back into the fight. It’s not like it’s under Galra control, right? Plus, this place is massive. It’s just that much easier to blend in. Especially now that we’ve got fun disguises.”

         Pidge leaned back onto the bed. “Matt does have a point. It’s honestly probably better for this place to be connected to other planets. I mean, yeah, some people could be connected to the Galra, but there’s an equally likely chance someone’s got connections to the Coalition. Maybe there are even Blades all the way out here, you know?”

         Clearly, this was an argument Hunk wasn’t going to win. He could acknowledge that the Holts made some points: they weren’t completely cut off from the larger universe, by the looks of it. But Hunk still didn’t trust anything about this place, and it was dangerous, no matter which way anyone sliced it. Their “home” was gone. The best they could hope for was to get back to Voltron and bolt if things got dicey, but even getting back to Voltron was a whole other task in itself.

         “Fine,” he conceded.

         “It’s not fine,” Pidge deadpanned.

         “No, it’s not, but I know when to cut my losses.”

         “Nothing’s gonna happen to anyone, not on my watch,” Matt said, clapping a hand to his heart. “Scout’s honor.”

         Hunk flicked his gaze between the two of them. Matt looked like he was waiting for something, like for Pidge to call him out for never having been a Boy Scout, but Pidge just stared at him, levity fading. Matt must have realized he’d said something wrong, because he abruptly stood up and dashed around the corner.

         “Anyway, I’ll be taking a shower.”

         Instead of chasing after him, Pidge watched him go, and neither she nor Hunk spoke until they heard the door to the bathroom click shut. A few moments later, Matt’s muffled voice came through the wall, demanding to know how the showers worked, until at last he was cut off by the sound of running water.

         “Do I want to know what happened between you two?” Hunk asked.

         “He was going to sacrifice himself on the mission to rescue Shiro,” Pidge answered quietly, gaze falling to her lap. “He didn’t tell me. Keith did. He knows I know something is up, and he might suspect that I asked Keith about it while he was in the pod, but he doesn’t know for sure that I know.”

         Hunk’s face fell. “Oh.”

         Pidge shrugged. “I mean, it is what it is. I tried to ask him what was up and he didn’t wanna tell me about it, so.”

         “Well—” Hunk leaned forward and laid a hand on Pidge’s shoulder “—in the meantime, that’s you, me, and Keith who know. And I’m assuming Shiro probably knows, too. If Matt won’t look out for himself, then we will.” His expression turned a bit more sober. “And also, I think it’s especially important here of all places that we don’t let each other out of our sight.”

         Pidge blinked. “We just let Matt out of our sight.”

         “…I think we need to make exceptions to use the bathroom.”

         “Look at this!”

         Romelle and Allura’s room was small. When they had asked the alien at the front desk for a room for two people, their Altean marks color-shifted to blend in with their skin and not draw suspicion, Allura had been envisioning two single beds, a perfectly reasonable assumption to make. Instead, when they walked in, they were greeted by one double bed sitting in the center of the room, with a dresser a few feet away and a small table between the bed and the wall.

         Along that wall was a floor-to-ceiling window with thick curtains that Romelle had thrown aside, and she bounced on the balls of her feet as she glanced over her shoulder at Allura, beckoning her toward the window.

         The view of the city wasn’t the most impressive thing Allura had ever seen, but then again, she had been a princess in the past. A Paladin of Voltron, too, for far longer than Romelle had been away from the colony. Such a view must have been a first for her. 

         Her eyes twinkled with the reflection of the lights outside, so many vivid colors caught up in the brilliant violet skies in Romelle’s irises. Her profile was outlined in strobing blue, pink, and purple, and her smile was dazzling.

         Cheeks searing, Allura joined Romelle at the window and tried not to make a noise as Romelle grabbed her shoulder.

         “Look at this,” Romelle repeated.

         Looking straight ahead, there wasn’t much, just the looming shadows of other buildings. As night crept in, the lights caught up in the smog clouds seemed to brighten, while the occasional hovercraft or flying vehicle zipped by their windows. Below, though, traffic became thicker, headlights flashing, horns honking, shrill whistles piercing the air. Aliens ran, stumbled, meandered. Some walked side-by-side, so close to each other they were nearly one being. Vendors from street stalls hawked their wares with discordant shouting.

         And here Romelle and Allura were, caught up in the middle of it all but tucked away from prying eyes, a moment to themselves amidst a sea of chaos.

         “I’ve never been around so many people at once,” Romelle admitted, her voice smaller than it had been a moment ago. “The colony hadn’t been tiny by any means, but it was still far smaller than this. Everyone knew everyone, but here…it would be so easy to get lost.” There was an excited lilt to her voice at the end there as she turned slightly to look at Allura, vibrant mischief in her expression. “How do you feel about getting lost, Princess?”

         Princess.

         Allura remembered asking Romelle not to call her that, but this was different. This princess lacked all the distance and stiff formality of those early addresses and instead held something that made Allura’s insides feel fizzy and warm. She found herself returning Romelle’s smile as she clasped her hand over the one Romelle had on her shoulder.

         “I think it would be nice to get out for a bit.”

         Shiro and Coran had managed to snag two singles next to each other—not a suite by any means, but with the walls thin enough that they might as well have been. Not to mention, Coran had decided to join Shiro in his room for the time being.

         Not that Shiro minded. After everything that had happened, being with the team again was a beautiful change of pace. He had spent so long sleeping by himself—if whatever rest he had gotten in Haggar’s custody could even be called sleep—or surrounded by patrols that he didn’t want to let go of whatever time he could manage with the others. Hell, he would have shared a bed with Coran had the hotel given them just one.

         Coran was quiet as he sat at the edge of the bed, staring at the floor-to-ceiling window at the end of the room. Shiro had been itching to ask him questions for almost a week now, but he had never found a good time. Not with the kids around them. But now…

         “What happened while I was gone?” Shiro asked before he could stop himself.

         Coran turned toward where Shiro stood, leaning against the wall. “I thought we caught up on all of that around the campfire?”

         Shiro sighed. “I mean, I got the big picture, but—how was the team?”

         They weren’t okay, but if Shiro knew the kids, half of them would never own up to not being okay. Or at least, wouldn’t to Shiro. Not after the entire clone incident, a complete breach of trust compounded by well, whatever I’m going through isn’t that bad compared to what you just went through, so I’m sure you don’t need to hear it. I’ll be okay.

         Coran took a moment to think about his answer before sighing, “Not as well as they could have been. A lot of them weren’t sleeping, despite insisting otherwise. At the very beginning, there was a lack of cohesion among them. Keith certainly didn’t want to be the Black Paladin, and both Lance and Allura struggled with the Lion switch a bit, but they all came around. Once the clone arrived, though, things shook up again. A lot of them became more withdrawn.”

         Shiro remembered that. Kuron had spent a long time wandering the castle halls by himself. Making himself busy with implementing Haggar’s plans. He mostly saw the Paladins in group settings—seldom were they ever alone with him. Keith had probably wound up alone with Kuron the most, but even that waned once he realized something was off.

         They all had thought that Kuron’s behavior was just Shiro taking out his frustrations and trauma on them, that all of it was just him failing to regulate himself. Failing to remember their needs and take care of them the way he should have been.

         “Thank you,” he said, meeting Coran’s eyes head-on. “You took care of them when they needed it most. Thank you for being there when I couldn’t.”

         “Yes, well, that’s my job,” Coran said. “King Alfor entrusted Allura to me in the event that something happened to him. In a way, I was meant to take care of the Paladins too, be them the old or the new.”

         “You didn’t just do it out of duty,” Shiro said softly. “You love them.”

         Coran smiled wistfully. “I do. I suppose I love them quite similarly to how you do.”

         “Yeah.”

         For a long time, Shiro hadn’t really considered kids. First it was because he was young, and his focus was solely on acing his classes and getting into the Galaxy Garrison rather than anything like crushes or a domestic future. Then Adam came along, and Shiro’s thoughts for a while were more occupied with kissing him in the flight sims and sneaking out behind their superiors’ backs to go ride speeders across the desert.

         It wasn’t until Shiro had become a professor and Garrison recruiter that things changed. He remembered the school visits, remembered the sea of young faces looking hopefully at him, most of them eager to be in the next cohort of future space explorers. He memorized every student in his classes, tried to remember how each of them best learned, brainstormed ways to help the ones who struggled more than others.

         Keith had been the one to solidify Shiro’s desire for a future family. Keith became that family. Him and Adam.

         Until Shiro’s diagnosis dashed that all away, and his priority became Kerberos, the culmination of everything he had spent more than a decade of his life working for. He wanted to seize that victory before it was ripped away from him, all else be damned.

         Looking back,Shiro couldn’t say for sure if he would go back and do it differently—there was no telling what would have happened if he hadn’t gone to Kerberos. But what had happened was this: he went through hell. He was still in hell. He survived at least half a dozen things he shouldn’t have. He was still surviving.

         And now he had seven kids to take care of. Seven kids he would kill for. Seven kids he would die for.

         “We should probably check on them,” Shiro decided, activating his earpiece. “Team, do you copy? Has everyone checked into their rooms?”

         After a chorus of loud and clears and getting settleds and the like, Romelle’s voice came over the comms: “Allura and I are going to go exploring for a bit!”

         “Wait, that sounds like fun—Keith and I are also going exploring,” Lance chimed in.

         “Can’t we do something that isn’t risky? Like take a nap? Something simple like that?” Hunk pleaded.

         Shiro sighed. He might not have known Romelle that well, but he knew Keith, Lance, and Allura, and knew that he wouldn’t be able to stop them if they had already set their minds to leaving. “If you’re going to go out, be safe, and be back at the hotel in three hours, all right? Check in when you can, call us if you end up in danger.”

         “Shiro,” Hunk tried to protest in exasperation, but was drowned out by cheering and enthusiastic agreement to Shiro’s terms before Shiro turned his comms back off.

         “You know, I think you and I should get some exploring in, too,” Coran said, standing up and stretching. His back cracked loudly. “What do you say? We can go hit the town and do some networking for the Coalition? See what people know?”

         Shiro shrugged. After being cooped up by the Empire for so long, and then stranded on a remote planet, it would be nice to get out for a bit. “Sure.”

         As the sun plunged behind the tallest buildings of the city, dying rays casting glass-and-metal spires in fiery orange and gold, the streets below only seemed to grow busier, the crowds denser. Lights strobed and colors bounced off of buildings, splashing over the masses.

         Keith had grown used to having Lance’s hand in his, but when he laced their fingers together as they exited the hotel, a jolt ran through Keith anyway.

         “Gotta stay together,” Lance said, winking. “C’mon!”

         For a planet they didn’t know, filled with sounds and smells vying for their attention, Lance navigated with ease. He pulled away from the main roads and ducked into alleys and side streets, where things were a little quieter, a little less chaotic. More room for the two of them to slow down and breathe and take it all in. They passed underneath footbridges and dangling wires, flags and dripping laundry. Each time they returned to a main road, Lance merely squeezed Keith’s hand and kept them to the sides of buildings until they could find another place to slip away to.

         It had taken some coaxing to get Keith to leave the hotel room. He had anticipated napping, given everything the team had gone through. And he suspected that if he had pushed a little harder, Lance would have left the idea of hitting the city alone. But he pleaded with Keith: they hadn’t had any kind of real leisure time in weeks, and even if they had all the amenities they needed in the hotel, what was stopping them from going out and having a little fun?

         Keith had never taken himself for someone weak to puppy dog eyes, and yet here he was.

         That wasn’t to say he had let his guard down. And that wasn’t to say they were being entirely reckless. Lance agreed to keeping things outdoors, lest they be caught somewhere with few exits and no places to hide.

         “Just some fresh air,” Lance had promised in the hotel room, holding Keith’s hand between both of his own. “And, y’know…maybe some time to just…be us?”

         Keith hadn’t quite gotten it then. They were them, and they were Paladins. Soldiers.

         Now, though, as Lance pulled them around the corner of a building, glancing this way and that to make sure there were no onlookers before he turned a stomach-flipping grin on Keith, he was finally starting to understand.

         Shenanigans. Teenage shenanigans. The kind he had only heard of but had never gotten to experience.

         Until now. When he was, again, a soldier. And had important things to be doing, like resting and getting more supplies, and then helping the team figure out how they were going to get out of here and back into the fight.

         But in a way, wasn’t this resting?

         It’s resting for your emotions, Lance would insist. It’s so you can stop being emo and loosen up.

         And Keith’s insides did feel loose—loose and twisty and warm as Lance pushed away from the wall he’d been leaning against and carefully cradled Keith’s cheek, thumb rubbing gently back and forth. It was the sort of thing that Keith was discovering made his knees feel weak and his eyes sting in a way they wouldn’t have just two weeks before, not because they couldn’t but because Keith wouldn’t let them.

         But things had changed. They had always been changing, but Keith had finally found it within himself to acknowledge it. Admit it. Embrace it.

         It was the way Lance had held him on the battlefield, still high on adrenaline, ships still exploding overheard. It was the way he had caressed Keith’s cheek on the other planet, like he was something fragile. For the first time in a long time, being treated as fragile hadn’t agitated Keith. Instead, it cracked something inside of him open not like a chink in his armor, but like a geode fissuring just before it split apart.

         “Is this okay?” Lance murmured, the chaos in him settling into something softer as he stepped closer to Keith.

         Keith swallowed, nodded. Snaked arms around Lance’s waist to pull him closer and quirked a smile of his own. “Yeah.”

         It was just the two of them. Nobody here knew their names, and without their armor, with the rest of the team scattered across the city, nobody would recognize them either.

         So here, in the shadows between buildings, Keith leaned into Lance’s touch with a sigh. Closed his eyes and tipped his chin up. Felt Lance’s breath on his lips in the moment before they touched.

         And then he flinched back as something whizzed by his ear.

         Lance must have heard it. Might have seen it. The hurt flashed in his expression for only a second before his gaze strayed over Keith’s shoulder, and just like that, the moment shattered. Keith drew his knife and shoved Lance behind him, threw an arm up to keep him there. The shot had come from behind Lance, so where—

         “There!” Lance pointed up, and Keith followed his finger to one of the footbridges far overheard.

         Keith couldn’t make out anything distinctive about the figure standing over them, besides that they were humanoid and stood rooted to the spot as Lance pointed at them. They shifted their weight back and forth before they tilted their head. Inclined their chin slightly.

         The hair on the back of Keith’s neck stood up. Next to him, there was a flash of purple light as Lance’s bayard transformed.

         “You brought it?” Keith murmured, pressing in closer to him.

         “’Course I did,” Lance replied, stealing a glance around the rest of the alley while Keith kept his gaze trained on the assailant above them. “Where else do I get guns perfectly tailored to me? You think I’m just gonna leave this with our stuff?”

         “That might just make you the smartest person on the team.” There was no levity in Keith’s voice. “Good thing you’re the leader now, huh?”

         Lance elbowed Keith sharply. “No flattery. They shot some kind of darts at us, but so far it’s just the one of them.”

         “I wouldn’t count on that being the case for long.”

         They had to get out of here. Keith loathed being in the crowds, but compared to being alone in an alley with a silent assailant watching them, probably waiting on backup, the crowds were a refuge. All the easier to slip away into a sea of people who looked nothing and everything like them.

         Lance must have had the same thought, because he nudged Keith, the two of them inching backwards the way they came.

         Even with Lance’s gun trained on them, and Keith and Lance slowly creeping their way out of the alley, their assailant stood statuesque on the footbridge, watching them go. 

         Whatever weird tension was lingering between Pidge and Matt seemed to have dissolved, or at least been shelved, as they enthusiastically made their way through the city, Hunk in tow. Pidge led them through the crowds, and twice Matt and Hunk had nearly lost sight of her, small and nimble on her feet as she was.

         “I really don’t trust this,” Hunk said for what must have been at least the fourth time. “It’s all adding up, but I really don’t like what it’s adding up to.”

         “Hunk,” Matt said, patting his shoulder, “like I said before, nothing is happening to you two on my watch.”

         Hunk shot a glance at him. “You know I heard, right?”

         Matt stiffened, pausing for a moment until Hunk grabbed his arm to keep pace with Pidge.

         “I’m not naming my source,” Hunk added, nodding to Pidge as she turned to wave at them, bouncing on her feet in front of what seemed to be some sort of gaming store. “And I’m not gonna make you talk to her about it. But I know. As an oldest sibling, I get it, but also, as one of the youngest unofficially adopted siblings of Lance’s family, dude.”

         Matt dropped his voice the closer they got to Pidge. “Look, I’m—”

         “Going to talk to her about it,” Hunk deadpanned. “Because she’s a Paladin, and just as capable of understanding as the rest of us. Because she’s seen a lot of shit she shouldn’t have to already, so whatever you think you’re protecting her from is a moot point.”

         Before Matt could properly respond, he and Hunk reached Pidge, who was all but pressed against a shop’s windows. Inside, neon lights cast distorted images on the glass, but Hunk could just make out what must have been gaming consoles and rigs.

         “We have to get in here,” Pidge breathed against the glass. “Lance is getting better at Killbot. I need new ways to kick his ass.”

         Hunk patted Pidge’s head. “We can look around, but we really should be saving our money for emergencies. As in, the emergency we’re in right now.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I wonder if there are any mechanic shops around. Maybe we could find something to get the Lions running more reliably. I love Allura, I trust her, but I super do not trust whatever keeps possessing her.”

         “You just have trust issues,” Pidge declared, ducking inside the store.

         Hunk stared after her and Matt. “I do not, I think I have a healthy sense of skepticism in a very shady situation with forces beyond our control—!”

         “You can be skeptical and still have fun,” Matt said, guiding Hunk by the shoulders.

         Hunk groaned. “You sound like Lance. Like, the worst possible version of him.”

         “And here Lance told me I sounded like Keith,” Matt said, and then frowned, tugging at the ends of his hair. “Or at least looked like him. Does this count as a mullet to you?”

         “I’m not getting involved in this,” Hunk decided, striding pointedly away from him.

         The shop was garish and kitschy, more overbearing than any video game shop on Earth that Hunk had set foot into. Everything smelled vaguely like chemicals and polish. It was also dark, with multicolored spotlights strobing overhead. It disoriented Hunk a bit as he wandered between racks full of video games in crinkly packaging, titles he had never heard of in languages he couldn’t read. Some depicted dying monsters; others showed gory images of dying aliens that set Hunk a bit on edge as he promptly looked away.

         At the far end of the store, there seemed to be a second room. Hunk couldn’t read the sign at the top of the door frame, but stepping inside, it seemed to be some kind of arcade. It was even darker than the main store, lit only by its aisles of games, while loud music and noises pounded out into the front. Inside, a handful of solitary patrons busied themselves at various games: a first-person shooter. This planet’s equivalent of skee ball. Some sort of game of chance that seemed like it would be far more at home in a casino—not that Hunk had ever really found the time to set foot in one between his Garrison studies and the whole saving the universe business.

         “Have you come to play?” a voice called, and it took Hunk a moment to realize that it was calling out to him. He turned and took an abrupt step back, eying the alien who had crept up behind him. They looked like any other alien here did, which was to say utterly unrecognizable to Hunk and like no one else here. Hunk had no idea where they came from, but they wore the bright, flashy clothing offered in a few of the more expensive stores the Paladins had passed by. They were purple-skinned, tall, with two bulging eyes on the top of their head, and they smiled just a bit too widely down at Hunk.

         “I was just looking,” Hunk tried to explain, rubbing the back of his neck. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, back toward the main part of the store. “My friends are waiting for me.”

         “What friends?” the alien asked, cocking their head at an angle so close to 90 degrees that Hunk worried for a brief second that they had snapped their own neck.

         That worry was swiftly replaced with a deeper, more pressing worry when he glanced back and found that the door was no longer directly behind him, although he could have sworn he hadn’t set more than a couple feet into the arcade.

         When he turned to look at the alien again, the alien, too, had disappeared on him.

         “Don’t worry,” came the alien’s voice from Hunk’s other side as something sharp jabbed into his neck. “I’ll take good care of them.”

         The second Allura and Romelle stepped outside of the hotel, Romelle looped her arm through Allura’s, and the two of them were off, sliding seamlessly into the turbulent crowds. They bobbed and weaved their way through, ducked around elbows and slipped out of the current just as easily at each shop that grabbed their attention. Some were other clothiers—the one the Paladins had stopped inside had been located by Hunk, and sold itself on its practicality and comfort, while the ones that Romelle and Allura checked out were far flashier and far more expensive—and others were jewelers. Still, others were cafés that they had no time to stop inside, and certain others seemed to be arcades, theaters, indoor arenas for sports neither of them had ever heard of.

         Endless possibilities.

         “In here!” Romelle said, pulling Allura into yet another shop with jewels glittering in its small front window. 

         The store was furnished similarly to many of the others they had stumbled inside, with sleek black counters and display cases lit up in cold white. Instead of video game consoles or expensive jackets, different boxes and stands took up the walls and counters, spilling over with a rainbow of gems and bedazzled jewelry. Necklaces, rings, bracelets, even certain types of jewelry Allura couldn’t identify. Her lips parted in wonder as Romelle dashed to the far end of the store, tugging her along.

         Some of the gems that the two passed by looked uncut, as though they had been pulled from their natural habitat and tossed into the case: large, purple lumps; chunky, jagged-edged blue stones; a split rock with a yawning mouth full of sharp, glinting innards. Other jewels had been shaped into something completely new, fashioned into alien skulls and stone flowers, cut into neat blocks or smoothed into palm-sized spheres.

         Romelle had paused at none of those. Instead, she had beelined toward possibly the most expensive part of the store: jewelry of the sort that not even Allura had dared yearn for as a princess. Large, dripping with crystals and fine metals, twisted into ornate shapes and styles. On instinct, Allura peered over her shoulder toward the lone alien who sat behind the main counter—a tall, willowy sort of blue alien with glossy green hair—to see if they would come to chastise Romelle as she picked up an item. But they stayed put, busying themself polishing gems underneath the glass case while speaking into some kind of communicator device. Business as usual.

         “This is gorgeous,” Romelle murmured, and Allura looked closer at the item she held.

         It was a tiara, large but thin and delicate, made of gold curlicues and crusted over entirely with gems of all colors. There seemed to be no set pattern to the colors, but the most prominent ones were dark blue, deep violet, and gleaming black, like a night sky splashed here and there with different shades of stars. Allura studied it over Romelle’s shoulder, awed.

         “It is,” she agreed.

         Before Allura could reach out to trace a finger over it, Romelle turned. Biting her lower lip with patient focus, she placed it atop Allura’s head and took a step back. Allura stood rooted to the spot as Romelle inhaled sharply, eyes widening.

         “What?” Allura asked. “Is—is something wrong?”

         Romelle shook her head. “You’re beautiful. Like the royalty you’re meant to be.”

         Oh.

         Allura couldn’t muster up a response to that. She could hardly breathe at the way Romelle looked at her, as if she had been the one to put all the stars in the sky herself. Allura had had people admiring her before, had had diplomats and prospective suitors tripping over themselves in their efforts to impress her. There was something about this, being lost at the edge of the universe, running around in disguise on an unfamiliar planet without any escorts or assistance…

         “Of course, you’ve never needed a crown to seem royal,” Romelle tacked on hastily, and Allura became aware that she had been staring. Was Romelle’s face red? Was her own? “Your true royalty is in the way you carry yourself. I mean—”

         “Are you going to buy that?” a voice called across the room. Allura jolted out of the moment as she and Romelle turned. The voice seemed just as soft-spoken as it was harsh, but Allura couldn’t deny the way her hackles rose. The alien who must have been the shopkeep straightened out and met their gazes head-on, watching them with two black eyes speckled with white.

         “Oh, no,” Allura said, moving to take the crown from her head, “we’re just here to browse—”

         “How much is this particular trinket going for?” Romelle interrupted.

         Allura’s eyes widened in alarm. Most of their money was still on the castleship, if the Galra hadn’t found it yet. They had made it a point to keep emergency stashes of GAC in the Lions after the first wormhole malfunction, but it was a miracle in itself that this city, so far removed from the larger universe—or so it had seemed—took GAC at all. And they had already spent much of it on newer emergency supplies and changes of clothes.

         The shopkeep eyed Romelle for a moment. Eyed Allura even longer, and something settled deep in the pit of Allura’s stomach as she pinpointed the spark of recognition that, for a mere split tick, crossed the shopkeep’s face.

         “How much are you willing to give me?” they asked, tracing a finger along the underside of the main counter as they walked out from behind it. They crossed all three pairs of their arms.

         Allura laughed nervously, wishing she had brought her bayard or some other weapon with her. Romelle quirked an eyebrow and mirrored the shopkeep’s pose.

         “I wasn’t aware this was a barter system,” she said, tipping her chin.

         “It isn’t, in most cases, but some days I feel luckier than others,” the shopkeep answered, taking a casual step toward them. “In certain cases, I even deal in things other than GAC.”

         “We don’t need this, really,” Allura said, carefully placing the tiara back on the pedestal Romelle had taken it from before linking their arms. “We’re not meant to be spending anything right now. Just browsing. Really.”

         She shot a sideways glance at Romelle, who finally seemed to understand that now wasn’t the time.

         “I just wanted to see if it was going for its true value,” Romelle said, still finding it within herself to puff up her chest a bit. “That was a very beautiful tiara. I’m sure it would make someone happy someday.”

         The shopkeep merely stared.

         “This is a gorgeous store,” Allura went on in the silence, carefully stepping toward the door and pulling Romelle after her. “All of these gems are beautiful. It was a pleasure to look around, and you are very fortunate to work here and be surrounded by all of this. Anyway, we’ll be heading out now, have a wonderful quintant.”

         The shopkeep merely watched as they crossed to the front of the store, face impassive. Their expression betrayed nothing, even when Allura tried to open the door—and couldn’t.

         She tried again.

         Wouldn’t budge.

         Stiffly, she turned. Romelle, equal parts afraid and confused, followed Allura’s line of sight back to the shopkeep.

         “Is this some kind of tourist trap?” Romelle sputtered first. “Are we meant to buy something in order to leave? If that’s the case, such signage should be clear enough for people to see before they walk in—”

         A different door opened from the back of the shop. Older, more traditional, with heavy, carved wood, and no visible doorknob. It could easily have passed—did easily pass—as nothing more than a relieved wall.

         Allura and Romelle stared as another alien strode through this door. The alien was the polar opposite of the one from the counter: orange-skinned instead of blue, short and squat, bald with one giant eye on top of their head, and three antennae where their mouth should have been. The rest of their body was humanoid, but the most startling thing about them was the laser gun they twirled around their finger, unmistakably Galra in make.

         “Team,” Allura whispered, activating the comms, “I think we may have been sold out.”

         Shiro hadn’t had a proper drink in a long time.

         He didn’t think it was fair to any bartender worth their salt to call Coran’s castleship concoctions “drinks” beyond the fact that one could drink them. Not that he would ever tell that to Coran and his increasingly…creative ways to handle nunvil. But between that, and the lack of hospitality shown to him by the Galra—not that he ever expected any—Shiro hadn’t had anything good in a long while.

         Not since Earth. Not since a night out with Adam.

         Shiro’s throat tightened at the memory. They hadn’t even been celebrating anything—they had just needed a night off—

         Not right now, Shiro reminded himself as he and Coran entered a bar. It looked expensive with its hard edges and minimalist color scheme, all black and gunmetal gray. The bar itself had three sides for seating and an extensive selection of alcohol, or whatever passed for it around here. Shiro eyed the more peculiar-looking ones, including a handful that glowed in a rainbow of colors, wondering which ones would get him buzzed and which ones would kill him with one shot.

         “Remember,” Coran said as they slid into two empty seats, “we’re here to make allies and perhaps find out if anyone has any information about the Empire or the Coalition!”

         Shiro nodded as if he had remembered this all along, and hadn’t been hoping for just one night to loosen up a bit after everything. “Yep.”

         He zoned out as Coran waved over the barkeep, a more burly alien who seemed just as exhausted as Shiro felt. Not even a minute later, they set down two drinks. Coran’s was one of the glowing ones, bright blue in a tall glass. Shiro’s was clearer, a sort of whiskey brown that only took up half of a much shorter glass.

         He downed it in two gulps.

         “Bit of a risk-taker, eh?” came a voice from next to him. Shiro spun in his stool to find a small alien sitting next to him, toad-like but a bright lime color. They swirled something around in their own glass before sipping at it, never breaking eye contact. “Heard you’re looking for information about the Voltron Coalition. That’s risky business for sure.”

         Shiro narrowed his eyes.

         An eavesdropper.

         “I might be,” he answered carefully.

         The alien laughed, a kind of hiccuping sound that set Shiro on edge. He was suddenly, painfully aware of how loud Coran was being next to him, in some rambling conversation with the alien next to him about his escapades around the universe.

         “Not a risk-taker, then. I misjudged you,” the alien said. “See, I’ve got plenty of information about the Voltron Coalition, and about the Galra Empire. Not much on Voltron, though—haven’t heard that name in a long time. I mean, even this whole Coalition business is new, but I’ve heard whispers.”

         Wary, Shiro nudged Coran, who spun around in his seat, seeming impossibly tipsy and borderline drunk already.

         “Shiro!” he said, slinging his arm around him. “What’s going on!”

         So much for aliases, Shiro thought, pinching the bridge of his nose before tipping his chin at the alien. “This person might have some useful information.”

         “Not might,” the alien said, smiling pleasantly. “I do. I can give you plenty!” They looked around the bar, then leaned in and dropped to a whisper. “Not sure if here’s the place, though.”

         “Here is just fine,” Shiro said, voice taking on a harder edge. He set his drink down. “What information do you have for us?”

         The alien’s smile twitched. It was such a small movement, anyone else might not have picked up on it. But Shiro clocked it and tried not to stiffen. Something was up.

         “What do you want to know?” the alien countered.

         Shiro studied them for a moment. “You said you hadn’t heard the name Voltron in a long time. How do you know about Voltron? What have you heard?”

         “Well, everyone around here knows the legend of Voltron,” the alien said, waving around their glass. “Everyone knows about the five Paladins, saviors of the universe!”

         Shiro nodded slowly, hoping his apprehension wasn’t showing on his face. “Yeah. We’re well-aware of Voltron’s reputation. Anything else?”

         “Oh, not much,” the alien said, flapping a hand and taking another pointed sip of their drink. “Rumors, here and there. Oh, the Paladins have come back! Oh, we’ll finally be free of the Galra! Every now and again I come across some visitor disgruntled that Voltron couldn’t save their home planet, or someone else bitter that it hasn’t shown up here yet.”

         “The Galra?” Shiro asked, at the same time that Coran blurted, “Have you seen Voltron: The Musical?”

         The alien flicked their gaze between Shiro and Coran before settling on Coran. “No, I haven’t personally seen a musical. This is the first I’m hearing of it.” Then, to Shiro, “And yes, of course the Galra.They know about our planet, and certainly have been here before, but it’s been quite a long while since they’ve shown up.”

         So that confirmed it. The team had had their suspicions, but here it was, out in the open: the Galra had been here before. Had stayed long enough to take over the government, at least partially, and then left. Presumably, then, this place was logged into their vast databases. Presumably, then, someone needed to come and oversee it now and again.

         “And what have you heard of the Coalition?” Shiro asked, fighting the urge to ask the barkeep for another drink.

         “Like I said, the Coalition business is new to me,” the alien replied. “But from what I’ve gathered, they may be having some issues at the moment.”

         None of this was information the alien couldn’t have gleaned for themself or didn’t already know just by eavesdropping. They were a grifter, invested in swindling him for some reason or another. Shiro didn’t intend to find out why that was.

         “Thank you for your time and information,” he said in what he hoped wasn’t too abrupt a manner, standing and trying to pull Coran up after him, “but we have other business to attend to.”

         “Why’re we leaving so soon?” Coran asked, words slurring slightly, but when Shiro glanced at him, he found that Coran looked…utterly sober. He quirked one eyebrow that said his drunkenness was just as much an act as the grifter alien’s bid for information and leaned heavily on Shiro anyway.

         They only made it a few steps before Shiro heard the whine of a gun charging up. The din of the bar fell to pin-drop silence, and Shiro and Coran turned stiffly.

         “Now,” the alien said, hopping off of the barstool and hefting a gun almost as large as they were, “I was going to offer you a way back to that castleship of yours nicely, but I see we’re going to do things the hard way.”

         Shiro’s eyes drifted over the alien’s head to the barkeep as if they would step in and help, but they merely busied themself with cleaning out glasses and cups, either used to situations like this or unwilling to get involved for some reason or another.

         “I never mentioned any castleship,” Shiro said, returning his gaze to the small alien.

         Three things happened at that moment.

         Shiro’s comms crackled to life for the first time in a while, only for Allura to announce, “Team, I think we may have been sold out.”

         At the same time, the alien leveled their gun squarely at Shiro’s forehead.

         Then Coran shoved Shiro down, smashed a glass over a table, and shouted “COME AND GET US!”

         “What do you mean sold out?”

         The crowd had carried Keith and Lance several blocks before they ducked into another alley, and even then they stuck to the very edge, ready to slip away again at a moment’s notice. In one hand, Lance held his rifle. In the other, he had twined his fingers with Keith’s and was squeezing. Keith squeezed him back and clenched his other hand around his knife.

         Nobody had batted an eye at the two of them openly carrying their weapons—or at least, if anyone had, they hadn’t noticed, and nobody had started anything with them.

         Allura didn’t answer. Keith and Lance swept their gazes around the alley, making note of fire escapes, balconies, lights pulsing and music pounding from inside apartments. There were more footbridges up here, but the aliens walking across them didn’t seem to be paying any attention to the world below. Even still—

         Lance tugged on Keith’s wrist, and Keith followed as they ran through the rest of the alley and came out onto a different street, equally as busy as the last.

         “Guys?” Lance tried again as he and Keith shouldered their way to another alley across the street. “Can anyone hear me? Team?”

         “Matt and I are here,” Pidge answered. “We, uh…we lost Hunk.”

         “What do you mean you lost him?” Lance asked.

         “We got distracted!” Pidge’s voice dropped to a whisper. “We just, y’know…we were in a video game store—”

         “It’s a nice store, to be fair,” Matt added. He sounded like he was only half-paying attention.

         “—and then he walked away from us, and we just thought that maybe he was annoyed or something or went to go get some air, but he’s literally not here. We checked the entire place, except there’s an arcade in the back, so maybe he’s there?”

         Lance chewed on his lower lip. “Hunk’s not an arcade guy, but he could be in there. Just find him and then get back to the rendezvous point. That means everyone.”

         “Yeah, what about you and Keith?” Pidge asked.

         “Almost got tranquilized,” Keith answered. “We’re fine.”

         “Tranquilized?” Shiro repeated.

         Keith stiffened at the sound of his voice, the chaos in the background.Wood broke, glass shattered, and above it all, there was a voice that sounded distinctly like Coran’s shouting to “try harder than that, you snirk-faced mapplezammer!”

         “We’re fine,” Keith reiterated, while Lance asked, “What’s going on with you two?”

         “Oh, you know!” Shiro grunted. “Just Coran starting a bar fight!”

         Keith and Lance traded glances. Lance opened his mouth to say something when movement from over Keith’s shoulder drew his attention. In one swift motion, he brought his rifle up and fired.

         Another humanoid figure hit the ground with a grunt. Neither Lance nor Keith could make out any distinguishing features in the few seconds where Lance’s shot lit up the dark, and they didn’t waste time trying to study them. Instead, they bolted back into the choked city streets, hugging the sides of buildings.

         “We need to get higher up,” Lance said. “If we stick to the ground like this, they’re going to get the jump on us. Literally.”

         Keith grabbed Lance’s arm. “Great idea. I’ve got a plan.”

         “You can’t call whatever impulsive bullshit you’re about to pull a plan—”

         Up ahead, the buildings opened up into a small square, glass and flashing lights glittering over a small, dewey block of perfectly-manicured grass. On one end of the square, there seemed to be some sort of parking lot next to what must have been a club or restaurant. The lot was a tarp-covered area of pavement loaded with all sorts of hovercraft, and no valet in sight.

         “Oh no,” Lance said, “Keith, we are Paladins—”

         “We’re already government fugitives, and when do you ever listen to authority?” Keith called back. “Cover me!”

         “These are civilian vehicles,” Lance hissed as he and Keith raced forward and fell under the shadows of the tarp. He followed behind as Keith darted up and down the rows of vehicles until he let out a small, victorious gasp. “We can’t harm civilians, saving them is our whole thing—!”

         “Then I’m sure someone will understand. Act normal for two minutes.”

         Keith knelt down next to his chosen vehicle, an enormous hoverbike similar in build to the Garrison speeders, with plenty of room for the rest of the team. He fiddled with something at the handlebars while Lance stood in front of him. There was no way they didn’t look suspicious, not with Lance holding a rifle and scanning the area for hostiles.

         “Got it,” Keith said a moment later as the engine roared to life. Lance turned, stunned, as lights pulsed and blinked up and down the sides of the hovercraft in a rainbow of colors: one moment pink and blue, another bright red and green, still another vibrant yellow and purple, over and over with no set pattern.

         “That is a giant sign begging someone to come get us.”

         “It’s our way out of here, now come on, Leandro,” Keith said, swinging a leg over and nodding for Lance to get on behind him. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”

         “Oh, so we’re back to the married couple thing now?” Lance asked. For all his indignation, he still followed Keith’s lead, stowing away his bayard. “Now you’re into it? After the nonsense you gave me in the hotel—”

         “Hang on!”

         “You little—!”

         The bike rose into the small gap between the other hovercraft and the ceiling and then shot forward, leaving Lance with no choice but to throw his arms around Keith’s waist and tuck his face into the crook of Keith’s neck, his jacket flapping out behind them.

         His stomach lurched as they ascended. Horns and engines hummed and whizzed around them, and Lance dared, for one split second, to look. Keith cut in-between lanes of air traffic before breaking free entirely, climbing higher and higher along the sides of skyscrapers until most of the other craft had been left behind.

         Lance opened his mouth to ask what the heck Keith’s plan was from here, but the words died in his throat when Keith glanced at Lance from over his shoulder.

         He was grinning. Lance couldn’t remember the last time he had seen Keith’s eyes that bright, couldn’t remember when he had last seen them truly crinkle at the corners. His bangs whipped backwards, rippling and swooping and feathery across his forehead. Lance had the urge to reach out and touch them.

         Then it was over. Keith faced forward again, hunched his shoulders against the wind, and they were off.

         Pidge and Matt had swept the store twice, and sure enough, Hunk was nowhere to be found. He didn’t answer when they tried his comms, both the team and private channels. None of the other patrons had seen him, either, which left Pidge and Matt standing before the entrance to a dark arcade.

         “There’s no way he’s in here,” Pidge said. “He was all over us about being on guard and the situation being sketchy. I don’t see why he would just start playing video games.”

         “To kill time, maybe?” Matt suggested, wandering a few feet ahead of Pidge.

         She followed him into the arcade. “He wouldn’t, though. He usually just starts overthinking, or like, stress baking.”

         “Same thing as baking, then.”

         Maybe Matt had a point. He and Pidge made their way down the first aisle of games, passing aliens who spared them not a second of their attention. They were all absorbed in some game or another—some wore VR headsets, others’ fingers were a blur over video game controllers, and still others were simply laser-focused on the task at hand. The music, too, covered up Pidge and Matt’s footsteps with a bassline so loud it rattled Pidge’s teeth.

         It grew darker the further they got from the main store, until their path was lit only by the glow of the machines and multicolored strobe lights. When Pidge looked back, she couldn’t see the front of the arcade at all. There should have been at least some light, but instead it was as pitch black as the other side of the store.

         “What the fuck?” she whispered. She reached forward to tug at Matt’s sleeve, the back of his shirt, something, but her fingers met empty air. When she turned, Matt was no longer there, even though he had been right in front of her mere seconds ago.

         “Matt?”

         She stopped walking. Stepped in a careful circle and took in her surroundings. When she had glanced back before, the front of the store had disappeared. Now, there was a wall of video game consoles empty of their players when she hadn’t turned any corners. Had been walking down the same aisle this entire time.

         “Guys?” Pidge tried her comms. She waited a few seconds, but only heard the faint buzz of static in response.

         All right. All right. Think, Holt.

         Pidge took in every detail of her surroundings: which games were on her right and left, the aliens playing them, what the walls behind her and far in front of her looked like. Matt had only been a couple steps ahead—if he had been snatched, she should have heard something. He must have just turned a corner, or something, but when Pidge tried to peer over the machines at her sides, she could see no other aisles. Just endless blackness, and a faint whiff of something mildly sweet.

         Something fucky was going on here.

         If her comms weren’t working, then clearly something was jamming the signal. No big deal—she’d gotten through this before. The separation from Matt and shifting room around her were a different issue.

         “Matt!” This time, she yelled to be heard over the pounding music and games around her. None of the aliens nearby flinched. Pidge looked at them all in disbelief. One of them should have heard her, right? There was no way they would all be this absorbed in a game that not a single one of them would react to someone yelling.

         Exasperated, Pidge reached for the alien nearest to her—only for her hands to go through the alien entirely.

         For a moment, Pidge could only gape. Then she did it again and watched as the alien warped around her hand. The game, however, was solid when she touched it.

         Rearing back, Pidge ran past a few more games. Smacked another alien at random and found that her hand passed through them, too. And the alien next to them. The blue-skinned alien playing air hockey and yelling at their opponent. The tall, burly one losing at skee ball.

         Was this store a front for something? Why would the arcade be full of aliens who didn’t really exist?

         “Are you lost?” a voice called, and Pidge froze as a shadow appeared around the corner she had been heading toward. She hadn’t brought a weapon with her—a senseless move, looking back on it—and now she was without Matt or Hunk.

         Pidge huddled between two massive arcade machines. She glanced over her shoulder, only to find another long aisle of games—and a distant glimmer of bright light.

         The store front. It had to be.

         She narrowed her eyes and swept her gaze over the arcade again. Hunk and Matt were somewhere in here. If she bolted now, she would be leaving them behind. She had no idea if they had been taken, if they were lost, or if they were looking for her. But if she stayed, then there was no telling when the store front would appear to her again. If it would appear to her.

         If it had disappeared at all.

         Holograms, Pidge considered as she stared at the aliens playing the two games she was squeezed between. The aliens were holograms. The arcade machines weren’t. That meant the arcade was real, which meant the entrance was real—and so its disappearance had to have been fake. The room changing around her had to be a hologram, too—right?

         Unless this storefront was fake. A lure.

         The shadow at the end of the row grew larger as its footsteps drew closer, and Pidge took her chances.

         It had been a long time since Allura had fought without a weapon. She longed for her bayard now as the alien across the store gave one final flourish and gripped their gun like they’d grown up wielding it, leveling it right at her and Romelle.

         Before Allura could step in front of her, Romelle shouldered her way to Allura’s side, fists raised. Maybe Romelle didn’t have Allura’s Paladin training, but their first encounter with each other had been Romelle engaging Allura in combat.

         Note to self, Allura thought as she too fell into a fighting stance, fingertips tingling, get Romelle more training.

         Correction: train her yourself.

         Under different circumstances, she might have indulged the heat rising to her cheeks. Here, though, she shoved it aside. Something was wrong, besides the door being locked and the gun in front of their faces.

         “Team?” Allura tried again in a hiss, but this time, all she got in response was the faint buzz of static. The comms were jammed.

         Quiznak.

         “Why don’t you two just relax?” the shopkeep asked, coming up behind the alien with the gun. “You’re wanted alive, after all.”

         Allura’s gut twisted. She clenched her fists tighter while her mind wandered to Shiro. Haggar had taken him alive twice over, and now he was out there somewhere with Coran—the others were out there—

         “And who’s asking for us?” Romelle snapped.

         “Well, really, they asked for the one of you.” The shopkeep locked gazes with Allura. “And it’s not so much asking as demanding.”

         In her periphery, Allura watched Romelle’s nostrils flare. “Can’t have her.”

         The alien holding the gun twitched, and Allura lashed out with her magic.

         The thing was, there was a time in Shiro’s life when he might have fantasized about getting into a bar fight.

         It had looked cool in the movies, actors rolling over tables and shattering bottles and ducking behind the bar for cover, opening fire on an enemy. Shiro hadn’t desired to fight for his life so much as to look cool and feel that adrenaline thrumming through his veins, maybe while a pretty boy in glasses looked on.

         This was nothing like his fantasies.

         Most of the aliens had made the smart decision to bolt as soon as the fighting broke out, but it seemed more than a handful of them had been itching for this just like Shiro’s younger self. Alcohol splashed across the floor beneath Shiro’s feet as someone hurled a half-drunk glass at him, and he swiped it away with his hand. Behind him, Coran shouted obscenities while laser gunfire erupted.

         He had lost sight of the alien who had tried to proposition him, but that was fine. All he had to do was get through the chaos and get to the door with Coran in tow, and then they could get lost in the night and the crowds.

         Of course, then he would have to go find his renegade kids. Because of course he did. Because the universe never let him catch a fucking break.

         Tranquilized, Shiro thought again as he held up a chair against someone’s incoming fist. The polished wood splintered and sizzled, and Shiro reared back at a cybernetic hand pulsing with heat. The alien in front of him clearly had no particular target in mind, but growled in the back of their throat and lunged at Shiro with an unsteady, drunken stupor.

         “Are you kidding me?” Shiro grunted back at them, tackling around the middle and throwing them over his shoulder. He paid no mind to the sound of the body hitting the slick floors behind him. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”

         “Shiro!” Coran called out, and Shiro whipped around in time to see the alien who had started all of this raising their gun at him.

         He dropped to the floor.

         Three laser blasts shot off and struck across the bar. One light fixture fell and shattered, sending glass and sparks—

         Sparks—

         —skittering across the alcohol-soaked floors—

         I hate chemistry.

         The city beneath Keith and Lance was a glittering gem against the dark as their bike tore between high-rises and penthouse apartments, soaring and weaving in and out of the spires of skyscrapers. The cacophonous sound below was nothing compared to the pounding of Lance’s heart as the bike tipped fully sideways, skimming along the side of a building before they shot back into open air.

         “What’s the plan from here?” Lance asked over the roaring of the wind.

         “Aren’t you the Black Paladin now?” Keith retorted. Then a moment later: “Was gonna try finding the team, but I had to shake the bounty hunters first.”

         “Oh, so we’re just—” Lance laughed nervously “—we’re calling them bounty hunters. Right. Cool. Cool.”

         “I don’t see what else they could be!”

         Lance had been the Black Paladin for maybe a week, and they had spent most of that time crashed on some remote planet at the very edge of nowhere. And now that he had his first test—or maybe second one, except he didn’t count the first one because he had been teleported into the Black Lion out of the blue—or out of Red, really—

         Focus, focus—

         “Team?” Lance tried the comms again as Keith dove back toward the highest lanes of hover traffic. “Team, can anyone hear me?”

         They had lost Hunk, and then Allura and Romelle had gone quiet. Where were Pidge, Matt, Shiro, and Coran now?

         “Guys?” Keith asked like it would help.

         Nothing.

         Keith swore under his breath while Lance held onto him a little tighter. It was just the two of them now, against…whoever was after them. The Galra, if Lance had to guess, because who else? Who else even knew that Voltron was out here in the first place, seeing as they had just arrived to this planet today?

         “We just have to get back to the hotel,” Lance said with a shake of his head. “We have to hope that at least some of the others made it back. They could have just…lost their comms. Or had the signal jammed. Or something.”

         “What are the odds that the bounty hunters found the hotel?” Keith asked.

         Something dropped like a stone in Lance’s gut. What were the odds? The Galra and their allies had presumably found the team in four separate places across the city in no time. The hotel, then, should have been a cakewalk. 

         “We left half of our belongings there,” he said with growing horror. “Our armor, most of the team left their bayards—”

         The bike jerked suddenly as if hit from behind. Lance and Keith each yelped as Keith swerved, trying not to hit the other vehicles around them. Lance whipped his head around and caught sight of another humanoid-looking alien, whose bike lurched dangerously close to theirs—

         “Keith!”

         “On it!”

         They dove sharply, Lance’s stomach somersaulting as Keith guided them into another, lower lane of traffic. Then they broke formation from that one and drove around the corner of a building.

         Another engine revved behind them, and Lance looked back again to see two more bikes tailing them.

         “Uh, Keith—”

         “I know!”

         They swung around another corner and into a tight alley. Clothes dangling from clotheslines brushed over their heads as they ducked down. The two bikes behind them split off, one ascending and the other descending.

         Chewing on his lower lip, Lance let one arm go of Keith to grab his bayard from one of the inner pockets of his duster. He narrowed his eyes as he caught sight of the one hoverbike above them, beginning to descend.

         His bayard transformed into a smaller version of his blaster, made for one hand instead of two.

         “Drop back,” he warned Keith, and Keith didn’t hesitate.

         Their bike came to an abrupt halt as Lance squeezed off the shot and struck the descending hoverbike. One of its two hovering mechanisms blew out, just in time to send it crashing down into the other hoverbike.

         Keith hit the pedals and sent himself and Lance rocketing forward once more.

         Pidge’s palms slammed into solid wall.

         “Oh, fuck this,” she groaned. This hadn’t been the storefront. The storefront was somewhere else. She could follow the walls, but—

         “I can help you.”

         The same voice from before. Pidge pressed her back to the wall as the alien she had been trying to shake stalked forward. Humanoid in build, purple-skinned and with two bulging eyes on the top of their head. Bright, flashy clothing. Most notably, though, they had one hand hidden behind their back.

         “You sure as shit will not,” Pidge replied.

         Weapon…weapon…need a weapon…

         What did they have? A gun? Some kind of blade? Pidge hadn’t been shot yet. Hadn’t heard any other shots go off. Not a gun, then. Or maybe they didn’t want to risk it without a clear target. Didn’t want to give themself away.

         “You’re looking for your friends, aren’t you?” the alien asked, taking one step closer.

         Pidge’s fists curled. “I don’t have friends.”

         The alien laughed, squeaky and unsettling. “I saw you come in with them. Surely they were your friends. They were both tall—”

         “Everyone’s taller than me,” Pidge said, starting to skirt to the left. Maybe she could follow the wall, so long as she had her back to it and the rest of the arcade in her line of sight. She just had to keep this alien talking.

         “Hm.” The alien tilted their head to a near-neck-snapping 90 degrees. “That they are. I’m sure your friends are very worried about such a small person in such a large universe.”

         “Yeah, they probably are, which is why I should get back to them.”

         Pidge hit the corner.

         The alien lunged.

         She ducked underneath their outstretched arms and bolted for a close-by air hockey table. The alien chased after her, and she rounded the table until they were on opposite sides of it. The alien moved to their left, and Pidge moved to her left. The alien moved to their right, and the Pidge moved to her right.

         Then she caught sight of their hand and the little syringe clutched between their fingers.

         “Say,” Pidge panted, “you said you knew my friends. What did they even look like?”

         “One had something tied around their head,” the alien answered. “The other like a bigger you.”

         Fuck. Shit. Fine, okay, this is fine.

         The alien had definitely dosed Hunk and Matt with something. That was fine. They also weren’t hiding it. They knew that Pidge knew, and what could she do about it?

         “What if I go with you willingly?” Pidge asked. It sounded ridiculous saying it out loud, but she was running out of options. She could maybe find her way out of this arcade eventually, but that was without being chased down. She was alone, and she would tire out soon enough. This alien had done something to Hunk and Matt, but at least they knew where they were.

         This is the dumbest fucking idea, and yet.

         “I’m afraid that isn’t possible anymore,” the alien answered, grinning. Their mouth was far too wide. “You could turn yourself over to me, if that’s what you mean.”

         “So surrender. You’re asking for surrender.”

         “I am.” No sugarcoating. No hesitation. They knew they had Pidge cornered.

         There was no getting out of here with an active threat present. If she tried to eliminate them, she had no idea where Hunk and Matt had been taken. And at the very least, it seemed like she was wanted alive. If she was wanted dead, this alien would have brought a better weapon.

         But was being alive any better than being dead in a situation like this?

         Shit. Shit.

         She would have to take the gamble.

         “I’ll go with you,” she said, taking a step closer.

         The alien smiled, pleased-seeming.

         Closer. Closer still.

         They attacked in unison.

         Pidge had the upper hand for only a moment, her hand iron around the alien’s wrist where they held the syringe. Then the alien shoved forward and sent Pidge backwards into the side of one of the arcade machines nearby. She smacked her head and blinked as stars scattered across her line of sight. Then an arm crushed up against her windpipe, just long enough for her to stare the alien in the face and commit it to memory.

         “Go fuck yourself,” she rasped as the needle plunged into her neck.

         Allura had no plan in mind as she threw her hands forward, swirling with bright pink energy. All she knew was the gun being pointed at Romelle, and that was all she needed to know.

         The energy exploded from her palms in two fireballs. One knocked the laser gun clean out of the alien’s hand, and the other sailed straight at their face. They ducked to the floor at the last second, and the fireball went flying, smashing into a glass display case. Glass rained to the floor, and broken jewelry spilled forth in shattered pieces.

         With the gun-wielding alien down and the shopkeep momentarily stunned, Allura whipped toward the door and threw out another blast of magic. The display cases in the front windows burst apart as Allura’s magic ripped across them, but the windows never budged. The door never so much as rattled. Romelle dashed across the room, leaping over gems and chains, and tried the door handle.

         Nothing.

         She shook her head at Allura and pointed, just in time for Allura to whirl on the shopkeep. Their fists met mid-air, Allura’s crackling with power that did nothing against the shopkeep.

         Instead, it was as if she had punched a solid wall. She met the shopkeep’s eyes, obsidian pools filled with dozens of dazzling, white little stars. Allura felt her movements slow, felt her fingertips tingle as her magic dissipated. The world around her narrowed to one point: the shopkeep’s face and their placid, passive smile.

         “What are you…?” Even her speech came out slurred.

         The shopkeep wrapped a hand around Allura’s fist and slowly lowered it. “You just come with me, now.”

         Allura’s legs twitched. She had the sudden, unbidden urge to follow—

         —“You quiznaker!”

         A laser blast lit up the room. Allura whipped around as Romelle shouted another obscenity, dodging out of the way of the blast. The blast smashed into the window of the door and ricocheted.

         Right toward Allura.

         She dropped to the ground and somersaulted, shooting back to her feet in front of Romelle. She raised her arm in front of her. Her other hand tingled, pink tendrils of magic swirling around her fingertips.

         “Are you all right?” Allura asked without glancing back.

         “Oh, I’m wonderful,” Romelle responded, breathless. “Not every day you almost get your head blasted off.”

         “Well, if you’re not a Paladin,” Allura sighed, narrowing her eyes. “I suspect that’s what this is about.”

         The shopkeep and the alien with the gun both stalked forward. The white flecks in the shopkeep’s eyes were twinkling in a near-hypnotic pattern that made Allura dizzy to look at. Romelle must have sensed it too, because she shifted on her feet. Cast her gaze to the floor.

         “You could just come with us,” the shopkeep said, their voice echoing slightly. Allura’s vision wavered, undulating like the heat off of rocket boosters. “That’s all it would take to make this stop.”

         “I don’t understand why you’re doing this,” Allura said, finding it difficult to speak, and even more so to keep herself rooted to the spot.

         “The same reason most of us do anything,” the alien with the gun replied, impatient. “Survival. Dunno if the Princess of Altea really knows—”

         The alien was cut off as one of the massive, uncut gems sailed across the room and smashed clean into their head, knocking them to the floor and opening a long gash across their forehead.

         Allura gaped. At her side, Romelle heaved a breath.

         “Don’t you ever tell her what she knows about survival,” she spat.

         Something fluttered in Allura’s chest, and she might have paid it more mind had a sharp pain not suddenly lanced through her skull.

         Allura doubled over with the force of it, and next to her, Romelle gasped. The shopkeep’s shoes were loud as they took slow steps forward. Gritting her teeth, trembling, Allura made herself look up.

         The shopkeep’s eyes had gone entirely white and were glowing like two headlights, their brightness seeming to swallow the rest of the room. Allura felt nauseous.

         “You will come with me.”

         “I won’t,” Allura wheezed. It felt as if something were crushing her lungs. She screwed her eyes shut and dropped her head.

         “We won’t.”

         A warm hand closed over one of Allura’s.

         You have to get her out of here.

         The floor underneath Allura’s fingertips was cool. It was as the Lions’ hulls had been, how Black’s hull had been, when she had repowered Voltron.

         You don’t have the aid of those beings.

         Calling on them would leave you vulnerable.

         The pain grew sharper in Allura’s head. Romelle’s grip on her hand loosened.

         You don’t need them. You saved a quiznaking Balmera before. You dueled Haggar.

         “Dunno if the Princess of Altea really knows—”

         “You will come with me.”

         “You’re beautiful.”

         “And you do not falter, despite the many reasons you should.”

         “Allura.”

         Allura opened the two pink flames of her eyes and attacked.

         The universe wanted Shiro dead. He must have pissed someone off in a past life, or maybe this was to atone for all of his mistakes in this life.

         Either way: half of the bar was ablaze.

         Fire alarms screamed overhead and on the dozens of floors above this one. He could hear more glass smashing as patrons broke windows, while another crowd beelined for the door. Tables and chairs burned; more drinks caught and more glasses exploded. Even still, some aliens saw fit to keep brawling. Shiro swung out at someone who drunkenly tried to punch him in the head, kicked out to block someone else coming at him with a chair.

         “Coran!” he shouted above the noise.

         Where had Coran gone? He was there one moment, and then things had worsened, and now—

         “Shiro!” It sounded choked and from too far away for comfort.

         Shiro turned toward the source of Coran’s voice and found him struggling between two aliens much bigger than the one who had threatened them. That alien had disappeared among the chaos, but Shiro didn’t have time to worry about them.

         He dashed after Coran, dancing around broken tables and unconscious aliens. His gut twisted as he glanced over his shoulder again at the fiery bar. It was only a matter of time before the rest of this place caught, but there was no way they were going to evacuate the whole building before then. If he stopped to try and evacuate even some of these people, he risked leaving Coran behind and at the mercy of kidnappers.

         Dammit, dammit, dammit.

         War asked everyone to make hard choices. Shiro wasn’t in a position where he could even dream of choosing both.

         He spun away from another alien coming at him from his left, staggering as one foot slipped. He caught himself on the edge of a table and used it as a launchpad, flinging himself forward again. The aliens weren’t heading toward the front door—no, they were heading toward what looked like the doors to a hallway, an entrance to the rest of the building or maybe a stairwell.

         Or an emergency exit.

         Shiro hadn’t taken two more steps after them when someone grabbed the back of the heavy black jacket he’d bought in the team’s shopping spree. He swung out with a fist, only for someone else to grab his arm.

         A couple years ago, this fight would have been over in seconds. It would never have happened in the first place, and Coran never would have been taken, and the bar would never have been set ablaze. But Shiro was still in recovery, was down an arm, and had gotten just buzzed enough to take the edge off. He hadn’t anticipated—

         He hadn’t anticipated.

         The realization of it, the understanding, crashed into him harder than the fist into his jaw. Harder than the leg kicking out the back of his knees or the hands twisting his arm.

         He had nothing to say in his defense when something burning hot pressed against his forehead.

         “Hmm,” said the small alien whom Shiro had disregarded only moments before, “and here I was warned that you were one of our biggest threats of all.”

         “Tell me what you want and who sent you,” Shiro said, trying to ignore the way the alien’s finger rested on the trigger of their gun, the heat searing his skin. “Whatever it is, I can give it to you if you leave the others alone.”

         Because of course. Of course. I think we may have been sold out. And We lost Hunk and Almost got tranquilized.

         They never should have left the hotel. Unfamiliar city, unfamiliar planet, only a half-functioning Voltron at best, and they had ditched their armor and weapons.

         Shiro wasn’t the Black Paladin anymore, was still fitting his piece back into the puzzle that was the team, but that didn’t mean he was no longer one of the adults.

         “Oh, well,” the alien sighed, “I’m afraid I just can’t do that. We’re already well past that, but I’m sure once you’re all reunited, they’d love to hear about how you stood up for them, futile as the attempt might have been.”

         Before Shiro could protest any further, the alien squeezed the trigger.

         “Oh, come on!” Lance groaned.

         The two crashed bikes were far behind Keith and Lance, but Lance spotted another one breaking from one lane of traffic below them, another two from above—

         “How many are there?” Keith grunted.

         Too many. Lance couldn’t tell where they were coming from, or what the giveaway was. Surely this planet saw hovercraft chases from time to time. Surely other people here fired randomly into the night. Were these people just looking for a fight, or—?

         “Down!” Lance shouted.

         This time, it wasn’t the darts that flew over their head, but some ball of electric energy. It sailed over their heads and struck the side of a building, knocking a potted plant clean off a balcony.

         “They’re gonna get somebody killed at this rate,” Lance said, leaning in closer to Keith.

         He tried to fire off another shot, but he couldn’t aim like this. Not traveling this fast or this erratically, and not with civilians who could be caught in the crossfire at any second.

         “Get us into another alley. Or to a roof, or something,” Lance said, already loosening his grip on Keith.

         “What are you doing?” Keith asked, voice pitching up in alarm.

         Lance forced a laugh. “Something stupid. No matter what happens in the next ten seconds, just keep driving!”

         “Lance—”

         “Keith—”

         The bike swerved toward an open roof, another ball of electricity hurtling past them.

         “Shut up and trust me!”

         Lance leapt.

         He tucked and rolled with the impact as he landed on a roof of reinforced glass. Whatever Keith shouted after him was swallowed by the wind as he shot off into the night, leaving Lance to fend for himself. Two of the three hovercraft gave chase, but one of them circled back.

         Lance opened fire.

         The assailant dodged around the first laser blast and drove straight into Lance’s second. There was a sharp cry as their engine blew and hover tech gave out, sending them crashing down to the city below. Lance heard another series of crashes, more shouting—

         No time, no time—

         Something exploded to Lance’s right, leaving behind scorch marks not two feet away from him. He whipped around and returned fire, sending another hoverbike crashing down.

         Right onto the roof.

         The glass panes on that half of the roof shattered under the weight of the bike, but its driver clung to the support beams, scrabbling for purchase. For a moment, Lance hesitated. They didn’t wear a Galra uniform. They could have been looking to start shit, or—

         “Backup,” Lance heard them wheeze, “backup, I’m sending my loc—”

         Lance shot.

         The alien cried out as the blast connected with their hand, and in their surprise, they let go of the support beam, falling down into the room below.

         Without waiting, Lance bolted. There was another rooftop across the way. He had the room to make it, especially with a running start—

         C’mon, c’mon—

         Lance hit the edge of the building.

         Leapt.

         And felt something sharp pierce the back of his neck.

         For one terrible moment, Romelle thought that her head might crack open like an egg, and the yolk of her brain would spill all over the once-pristine floors of the jewelry shop. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, and she couldn’t feel her limbs—not even Allura’s hand under hers. Everything in her begged to let go, to follow the shopkeep wherever they wanted—

         And then Romelle sat back, gasping, sucking in lungful after lungful of air as the shop lit up pink. Even then, it took her a moment to get her bearings and reorient herself with the situation.

         She was on the floor. The alien with the gun was unmoving a few feet away from her. And the shopkeep was locked in combat with an ethereal, glowing being that Romelle registered, belatedly, as Allura.

         What the quiznak…

         Her fists were ablaze as she bore down on the shopkeep, who met her every below and tried to deal one in return. The energy around them—crackled, unstable—broken bits of jewelry wobbled and levitated before hitting the ground again each time one of them came near, and Romelle felt the change in the air as a tingling in her fingertips, a faint buzz in her mind and a pressure in her chest.

         Quintessence.

         Alteans manipulated quintessence. It stood to reason that there were other aliens out there just like them, who could shape quintessence and bend its energy to their wills. The shopkeep must have been one such alien.

         Like Allura. Like herself and Coran.

         Like Narti.

         With Allura engaging the shopkeep, Romelle cautiously rose to her feet and backed up toward not the front door, but the one in the back that the other alien had come through. Neither Allura’s magic nor the alien’s gun had smashed the windows up front, and the entrance was a lost cause. But this one still hung slightly open.

         Romelle skirted around the fight, stomach turning over in knots. She needed a way to signal Allura. To distract the shopkeep long enough for both of them to get out, but then again, they must have known how the door worked. It would only buy them a few ticks, maybe a dobosh at most.

         Still, it was better than nothing.

         So Romelle darted across the store, trying to get within Allura’s line of sight. And it worked.

         And then it didn’t work.

         Romelle caught Allura’s eyes, breath momentarily stolen from her lungs. This was Allura. This wasn’t Allura. It was everything she was meant to be, and far more than ever should have been asked of her. Her gaze was raw power, something ancient. Primordial.

         “Allura,” she breathed out, and that was all it took.

         A gun fired; Romelle staggered back, the weight of her body slamming the door shut as she lost control of her limbs. Allura lunged for her, only for the shopkeep to tackle her and send them both to the floor, grappling for the upper hand as their powers clashed. The alien on the floor peeled themself up and locked an arm around Romelle’s throat, even though she couldn’t move her body if she wanted to.

         Then they pressed the gun to her head.

         “If you want her to live,” Romelle dimly heard the shopkeep hiss, “you’ll come with us.”

         One heartbeat.

         Then the pink light winked out. The buzzing in the back of Romelle’s head died.

         It was Allura on the floor, pinned down by the shopkeep. Romelle with a gun to her head.

         She hoped her apology showed in her expression as Allura met her eyes, then closed them.

         “Fine. Fine.” Then, with a defeated, wobbling breath. “We surrender.”

         If their lives weren’t in danger, if they weren’t actively being shot at, Keith might have admired Lance’s courage and sheer recklessness as he jumped onto the roof of the building and lit up the night with his blaster.

         As it was, their lives were still in danger, and Keith was actively being shot at.

         He jerked the bike to the right as two more energy balls sailed by him and got a look at his attackers: one on a bike, and one on some kind of hoverboard, both of them wielding guns.

         Keith revved the engine as he whizzed into another narrow passage between two taller buildings. It was just like flying Red. Just like the flight sims. All he had to do was shake these guys and get back to Lance, and then get them the hell out of dodge.

         He cut another sharp turn into an even narrower alley. Engines roared as his attackers kept pace.

         Keith heard the whine of the gun charging up again, and then the crackle as another ball of electricity exploded forth. He dove at the last second, his hair standing up, and zipped underneath a clothesline.

         Not even a second later, there was a choking noise. Glass shattering. Something that might have been a small explosion.

         Sucker.

         Keith hunched forward. Another building loomed before him, and in the reflection of its windows, he could see one assailant still chasing him—and more lights falling into line behind him.

         “All right, then, you want me?” Keith muttered. “Come and get me.”

         The distance between him and the building was rapidly closing. He could see the detailing of his bike, the sharp lines of color flashing across the sides, the individual furs on the hood of his jacket.

         Then he pulled up, front of the bike leaving a long white scratch on the windows that his original assailant decimated by crashing through them.

         For one weightless moment, Keith was upside-down. The city lights spun and strobed underneath him, beautiful in the fog. Keith spared a moment to think about Lance’s hand on his face. Their fingers intertwined. Lance’s loud and giddy laughter as they’d run through the streets. His thumb swiping over Keith’s knuckle. Maybe we’ll come back. Maybe another time.

         Then he was right side-up again, behind the small fleet of hovercraft chasing after him. He whipped around and shot back the way he came, and regretted it almost instantly.

         Smoke poured out of an apartment window, while yellow and orange light flashed inside, accompanied by the shrill wail of an alarm.

         Keep fucking driving.

         The acrid smell burned his nostrils, joined the bile crawling up the back of his throat. He caught sight of movement in other windows—

         Stop looking, keep going, just get back to—

         “LANCE!”

         He was leaping roofs. Right onto the burning building—

         Please, not again—

         —no, he wasn’t leaping—

         —he was falling—

         —and his bayard was tumbling from his grasp—

         Two more hoverboards materialized on either side of Lance.

         A vicious sound tore out of Keith’s throat. He was already pushing the bike as hard as it could go, he just needed to get there first—

         He let go of the handlebars. Clenched his legs.

         The weight of Lance’s unconscious body crashed into him and sent the bike sideways as both hoverboards descended upon it. Keith swore, digging his fingers in and clinging onto Lance with one hand and grasping for the handlebars again with the other.

         Then none of that mattered as the back hovering mechanism blew out.

         Keith shouted in alarm, folding himself around Lance and fighting to keep his grip on the bike as it went into a tailspin. Gravity carried the both of them over the handlebars as something clamped onto the back of the bike and yanked.

         The ground rushed up to meet them, and Keith angled himself to take the brunt of the fall. The impact knocked the wind out of him, leaving him wheezing, but it had spared Lance.

         Who was still unconscious.

         Keith scrambled to get to his feet, hauling up Lance into a fireman’s carry, as the two hoverboarders descended upon them. He backed into the wall, drew his knife from his belt and held it out in front of him. He couldn’t fight like this, but there was no way in hell he was going to leave Lance alone and vulnerable. That meant he was a sitting duck as the two hoverboarders each leveled a gun at him.

         One of them was the same electricity gun Keith had seen their other assailants carrying. The other was some kind of dart gun.

         For a moment, Keith screamed as the shock from the electricity gun ran through his system. He collapsed, bringing down Lance on top of him. Only when the stun from the electric gun ebbed did he notice the pinch in his neck, just before his body began numbing. His fingers and toes—tingling, then nothing. His arms, his legs.

         He couldn’t get his tongue working to shout at their assailants to stay away as legs crowded in front of him. Arms, reaching down. He barely felt it when one of them hauled Lance off of him and tossed him over their shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Couldn’t smell the fire and smoke high above them, nor the dingy smell of rotting garbage, nor the fresh flowers dangling from nearby balconies or the hanging laundry. Couldn’t hear the cityscape, what his attackers were saying to each other. Darkness crowded Keith’s line of sight.

         The world faded away, and then it was nothing at all.